Thales of Miletus (/ˈθeɪliːz/; Greek: Θαλῆς (ὁ Μῑλήσιος), Thalēs; c. 624 – c. 546 BC) was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher, mathematician and astronomer from Miletus in Asia Minor, current day Milet in Turkey and one of the Seven Sages of Greece. Many, most notably Aristotle, regard him as the first philosopher in the Greek tradition, and he is otherwise historically recognised as the first individual in Western civilisation known to have entertained and engaged in scientific thought, (i.e. empiricism). Thales is recognised as having made a break from understanding the world and universe by mythological explanations to instead find explanations for the existence of natural things and phenomena by theories and hypothesis, ergo science. Almost all of the other Pre-Socratic philosophers proceed after him to provide explanations of natural things by way of there being a unity of everything because of the existence of a single ultimate substance, instead of explanation given by mythology. Aristotle reported Thales's hypothesis that the originating principle of nature and the nature of matter was a single material substance: water. In mathematics, Thales used geometry to calculate the heights of pyramids and the distance of ships from the shore. He is the first known individual to use deductive reasoning applied to geometry, by deriving four corollaries to Thales' Theorem. He is the first known individual to whom a mathematical discovery has been attributed.

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